Violated Economies: Iliadic Exchange in Robert D. Webb’s White Feather (1955)

Lorenzo F. Garcia, Jr. (University of New Mexico)

The Iliad can be read as a narrative of violated economies, specifically the failure to conduct proper exchange of women and material goods, as in Paris’ theft of Helen and Agamemnon’s theft of Briseis. Within the specific diction of the Homeric poems, hybris denotes the violation of xenia constituted by the rape of women (as well as the suitors’ wooing of Penelope); an act of hybris poses a social dilemma overcome only by means of symbolic death: the violated economy is reinstated only through the death of a significant character and the performance of elaborate burial rituals. Only through the death and burial of Patroklos and Hektor is the crisis between Achilles and Agamemnon resolved.

As many scholars have demonstrated, the “epic” American Western film tends to mimic ancient narrative patterns and tropes (Winkler, Solomon). Robert Webb’s White Feather (1955) is just such a film – it narrates the events surrounding the signing of the peace compacts between the United States and the Blackfoot, Crow, Arapahoe, and Cheyenne peoples that dictated their relocation from Wyoming into federal reserve lands to the South. The film is a study in violated economies, both in terms of marriage and land exchange.

Through an analysis based on anthropological theories of gift exchange (Mauss) and social interaction ritual/facework (Goffman, Hu), I argue that White Feather presents the problem of violated economies in Iliadic terms. The Cheyenne are reduced to a choice either of suffering genocide at the hands of American soldiers or of departing in disgrace, but two renegade warriors make a different choice which leads to the death of the chief’s son and the ritual beautification of his corpse. The death of the young prince allows the Cheyenne to “save face” and withdraw without shame. Like the Iliad, White Feather ends with a funeral for the dead, but one which stands for the death of an entire community.